Chapter 6

Hanah's POV

I was getting numb from eating meal kits.

I crouched at the entrance to the super warehouse deep inside the air-raid shelter, pushing aside the last opened pouch of instant curry.

The shelves were stacked neatly with hundreds of tons of staples, instant foods, and frozen meat—the system locked them in the moment they were placed there, forever fresh, forever cold.

But I knew deep down: these things could fill a stomach, but they couldn't fill a living person's obsession with "freshness."

Fresh? Chicken, duck, fish, shrimp, sheep. Thinking of that, I knew where I needed to go.

"Summer, watch the warehouse."

I locked the warehouse, got in my car, and drove to the farmers' market.

As soon as I entered the city, I could feel the atmosphere was off.

Everyone was wearing masks, looking somewhat panicked.

I parked at the farmers' market and walked to the live poultry stall.

The vendor was rushing to close up, shouting to a customer nearby, "I'm heading home early today. This flu is acting weird. I'll go home after selling this batch."

I stood in front of the cages and glanced over.

"I'll take them all."

The vendor froze, then his eyes lit up.

Chicken was $2.50 a pound, duck was $6 a pound.

He gave me a flat rate of $4 per pound for both. Twenty-six birds total, averaging six to seven pounds each—about $700.

I added a hundred bucks tip and told him to deliver to the suburban warehouse address.

I bought over thirty live fish at the seafood counter—catfish, bass, tilapia, and snapper—plus forty pounds of fresh shrimp.

I also paid extra for a couple of oxygenated tanks. Shrimp was the one thing I craved most in my past life.

I ran through a menu in my head: garlic butter shrimp, lemon pepper shrimp, Cajun blackened shrimp.

For the first time, the corner of my mouth curled up. It cost over fifteen hundred dollars.

In the butcher shop, I told straightly， "A thousand pounds of pork and five hundred pounds of beef, delivered today." I paid over forty thousand dollars.

In the corner of the market, two little lambs were huddled in a cage.

The vendor was an older man who explained these were special dairy goat breeds, only sold when the market was bad. The big ones were all gone, just these two left.

I crouched down, checked them over, and handed over fifteen hundred dollars.

"The flu is spreading badly these past two days. Stay out of the way." He took the money and said.

"Thanks."

I pushed the lambs to an unmonitored corner in the parking lot and stored them in my space. Then I drove home.

When I started the engine, a memory from my past life that took me ten years to piece together floated up in my mind.

The flu wasn't the real killer.

When the flu spread widely, it crushed human immunity. The real virus arrived at that moment—those with the weakest resistance fell first, directly turning into zombies upon infection.

But where the virus came from, I never figured out before I died. Some survivors said it was "God's hunting ground game," bringing not just death, but changes humans had never experienced before.

Less than three days until the apocalypse. I didn't plan to enter the city again.

On the way back, I turned into a farm tools and hardware store.

In front of the shovel shelf, I grabbed twenty military shovels at once. The clerk's mouth hung open as I pushed the cart forward.

I also casually grabbed a few of the heaviest solid wood baseball bats.

In my past life, I knew too well the value of cold weapons in the early apocalypse.

Gunshots would attract more zombies, while military shovels were light, fast, and silent—close combat was top-tier. The military folding shovel was originally designed after this.

Baseball bats, no need to say, were the most common and useful blunt weapons in American apocalypses.

These things work better than guns in the apocalypse.

Next to it was an outdoor gear store.

I swept through their expedition equipment: headlamps, tactical helmets, cut-resistant gloves, knee and elbow pads, tents, windbreakers, protective suits.

I also took everything from the emergency kit accessories section: tweezers, hemostatic forceps, band-aids, thermometers, etc. Over twenty thousand dollars.

The emergency kit reminded me—medicines weren't enough yet.

In the chain pharmacy, I pulled the last few boxes of Tylenol and ibuprofen from the back emergency shelf, then grabbed cold medicine, sterile gauze pads, rubbing alcohol, Betadine, bandages, Vitamin C, and electrolyte powder.

I stayed away from prescription drugs entirely.

Past life experience told me that in the apocalypse, people with weak bodies who relied on medicine every day were the first to be eliminated.

A little emergency medicine was enough.

The real capital was a strong body and enough food.

Around five or six in the evening, I sat back in the car and checked my balance on my phone.

There was still $1.57 million left.

Neon lights were turning on one by one.

There were fewer people on the street than usual, but the mall windows were still lit, people were still eating in restaurants, and people were still scrolling on their phones in coffee shops.

That money would be worthless in three days.

I started the engine and drove into the busiest commercial street in downtown.

At a high-end steakhouse with a window seat, I ordered a feast I'd never dared to dream of in my past life: cream of mushroom soup, garlic butter ribs, pan-seared halibut, crispy roasted chicken, garlic shrimp, and filet mignon.

I also asked the kitchen to pack up ten extra portions of garlic shrimp and steak for Summer.

The first soup came up. I lifted the bowl, took a sip, and closed my eyes.

Delicious.

This city had three days left. I planned to spend these three days living like a human.

After the meal, I started shopping.

Starting from the second floor, I went store by store: donuts, fried chicken, BBQ ribs, hot dogs, ice cream, smoothies, and milkshakes.

My walk in, asking the clerk, "I'll take everything you have today, to-go," pay, and have it delivered to the upstairs private room. The clerks all stared in disbelief, then quickly bagged everything.

Bakery bread, cheesecake, cream puffs, cannoli, waffles, danishes; fried chicken shop's original, spicy, honey garlic flavors, boneless chicken legs, whole chickens; all categories from the smoothie and milkshake shops.

This round cost about eight thousand dollars, clearing out all the snack shops on the second and third floors.

The basement level was a large warehouse supermarket.

I pushed two large shopping carts, taking just one of each item as a "sample"—one bag of every chip flavor, one box of each cookie and candy, one bottle of every drink.

From the hot food section, I grabbed deli meats, roasted chicken, and sushi.

From the frozen aisle, I took breaded chicken cutlets, pork chops, and fish fillets.

I also picked up personal care products, face cream, pads, and disposable towels and wipes.

In the appliance section, I ordered washers, robot vacuums, and refrigerators, with the delivery address set to the warehouse.

After checking out, I found the on-duty manager and pushed the two shopping carts in front of him.

"I want all the inventory in your warehouse for every item in these carts, except appliances."

The manager looked at the carts, looked at me, then opened the warehouse door.

I stood at the warehouse entrance, looking at the densely packed shelves, and estimated the price in my mind. Before I even finished taking everything from the carts, my account balance was almost zero.

I stared at that empty number for a moment.

This was enough, I thought.